Wednesday

Apr 25, 2018 at 6:00 PM

SHIPPINGPORT — If the Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station is deactivated, the first reactor at the plant will go offline by May 2021, while the second reactor would go offline by October of the same year.

That information was included in an official notice filed Tuesday by FirstEnergy Solutions with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The letter serves as just another step in a long process that could result in the deactivation of Beaver Valley and two other FirstEnergy-owned nuclear power plants in Ohio.

FirstEnergy Solutions, which last month filed for bankruptcy, has maintained that its nuclear fleet will be deactivated unless another entity buys the power plants, or unless state or federal agencies intervene and offer financial subsidies to keep them open.

That sentiment was echoed Tuesday by Don Moul, the president and chief nuclear officer of FirstEnergy Solutions.

“Absent legislative or regulatory relief, we cannot continue to operate the plants on their current uneconomic basis,” he said.

Despite that, FirstEnergy Solutions believes its nuclear plants “still have a crucial role to play in the reliability and resilience of our regional grid.”